Steel Production
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https://edge.alluremedia.com.au/uploads/businessinsider/2017/11/iron-ore-steel.jpg
OSE Case
- Recycling of steel from scrap at 1kWhr/kg
energy input. See Solar Steel.
- Another route is reduction of ore using hydrogen. See Hydrogen Reduction Smelting
- OSE's case would be to produce steel from direct reduction, which is more efficient and lower temperature than a blast furnace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron
- Iron mining in the USA - [1]
- Chromium mining (for stainless steel) - Chromite (FeCrO) is reduced to Ferrochrome (FeCr) via carbothermic reduction. Chromite in Oregon, Montana, California - [2]
Distributed Market Substitution Calculations
- Global production is 140 million tons [3]
- Farm Yields Per Acre shows about 1000 tons per year per acre yields of recycled steel. This means we need square mile scale solar operations per million tons (Mt)
- About 200 square miles displaces all of global production. That is 10x20 miles of area, or 200 farms. Only 200k acres. This is only 1/10 of the Largest Landowners
- 40% global steel production is from recycled sources
OSE Workflow
Sourcing
- Recycling
- Ore?
Refining
- Froth Floatation and other ore methods?
- Direct Reduction , and Charcoal Blast Furnace